Sunday, January 23, 2011

Is That So?

Danny: (to slacker teenage clerk) We are buying bulbs with krypton gas in them.Clerk: Oh, yeah, neat.Danny: Yes, it is quite common to fill bulbs with noble gases.

Speaking of science supplies-I stopped in the Christmas clearance aisle at Shop-Ko today and bought coloured Christmas tree replacement bulb sets for .27 cents. I don't light up my tree, but Danny burns through many a bulb experimenting with batteries and wire. At .27 cents a package, he can hook as many damned batteries up to it as he likes...unlike the fancy-pants bulbs that cost a buck a piece, noble gases and all.

Yesterday, he built a working telegraph involving a small metal wrench, a metal light tower from his antique model trains, a magnet and some wire. Oh, and then, seeing how he had a working telegraph, he taught himself Morse code. I barely remember being six, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't building working telegraphs, or taking apart my old toys for "parts." Also learned from child-you can pull the LED out of old Firefly toothbrushes (those are the ones that flash to let you know how long to brush, you know, because kids today are too micro-managed to just brush their teeth until they're clean, and need a flashing light to tell them when the task is completed) and use that sucker again for all manner of scientific experimentation. What are you doing with your old toothbrushes, cleaning the grout in your tile, or something equally exciting?

I'm afraid this is how it starts, and next week he'll be tearing the gears out of my hand mixer to build a super-collider or something.

Funny, I had written a response about how he's really just an average child who got bored without television and computers and found other interests...then I had to delete it. Danny just ran in the room announcing he'd finished book Six of the Iliad and was I mad he read ahead because he *just couldn't wait* until tomorrow to find out what happened."